Earlier this month I wrote a post titled Microsoft Dynamics CRM for Healthcare – Patient Relationship Management. I think it’s worth exploring a more personal look into the patient part of Patient Relationship Management.

We’ve all had bad experiences dealing with companies. I’m a little more sensitive about bad service because my job is to fix it. This afternoon my family and I had an experience with a healthcare organization that should help to drive home the point I try to get through to every company I talk to who wants to deploy CRM software. CRM is software and a business strategy. I see way too many companies talking software, software, software, and not saying a word about improvements they want with their business or customers. 

Wait a minute. It’s Customer Relationship Management, right? It’s about managing customers. To be more direct, it’s about optimizing your CRM implementation to improve your customer’s experience that they have doing business with your company. If those customers have too many bad experiences they will take their business elsewhere. What happens when too many people make the decision not to do business with you anymore?

A couple years ago I had a series of frustrating experiences with a bank that their Customer Relationship Management strategy and software should have prevented.  Isn’t it frustrating? How about when you have to deal with customer service for your cellphone? Or cable/satellite TV? Or car?

Getting poor service with an inanimate object is bad enough. But what about when it’s your health? Or how about your wife or children’s health? I don’t know about you but there is nothing more important than my family. Dealing with bad cellphone customer service is one thing. Bad service dealing with my family’s health is a whole different ballgame.

So here’s what happened. A couple of weeks ago my wife went into a local healthcare center for a test at the request of her doctor. The results came back indicating something wasn’t right which meant a more specific test needed to be done. It may or may not have been serious but as any good doctor would do they immediately scheduled the second test.

Fast forward to today. Test day. My wife was pretty nervous. Who wouldn’t be when for the past couple of weeks you’ve been wondering if there’s something wrong. So I took some time off work to go with her for support. My wife’s mother took a day off from her business and drove from Indiana (we live in Illinois) to watch our daughter. We were just about to leave home to go for the test when the healthcare place called saying there was a scheduling mix-up. They couldn’t do the test. More specifically, they don’t do that type of test at that location. My wife then told me this isn’t the first time this has happened with them. A few months ago she was scheduled for something else and they scheduled it at one location but told her a different location.

What? Scheduling mix-up? It’s a pretty common test. How the heck did the scheduling person schedule a common test at a location that doesn’t do that test?  Why didn’t they know this when it was being scheduled a couple of weeks ago? But should the scheduling person be expected to know everything that is or isn’t done at every location? Given it’s a large organization with dozens of locations I don’t think that’s realistic.

Every healthcare organization that has patients has (or is supposed to have) a patient scheduling system or Patient Relationship Management system. So the better question is, how the heck did the patient scheduling system allow the scheduling person to schedule the test in the first place? Probably because it wasn’t designed or implemented properly. The system probably never got configured to recognize which locations perform what tests. Or maybe it never got configured to prevent someone from making that scheduling mistake or at least flash a warning message about that test not being available at that facility.

But hold on. Let’s not forgot about the customer here. Me! I just wasted vacation time. My wife’s mother just wasted her time and money. And even worse, now it’s probably going to take another couple of weeks to schedule the test so my wife now is even more concerned.

Are we rescheduling the test with that healthcare company? No way. If they can’t even schedule a test right am I supposed to have any confidence they can do more complicated things right like properly diagnose and treat a health issue?     

Fairly soon I’m going to do a post about CRM installation versus implementation. There’s a big difference and this is a perfect example of why just installing CRM software and then telling your employees to use it is not the best approach. Is the CRM software supposed to magically know about the test/facility availability? No. A CRM business strategy and implementation methodology is what bridges the gap between CRM software and your unique business.

What do your customers think about doing business with your company?

• Extended Sales Forecasting: Enhanced sales forecasting mechanism for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0.
• CRM Notifications: Newsfeeds (RSS) that allow users to subscribe to CRM “events” relevant to their job role.

Here’s the rest of the accelerators they’ll be releasing soon.

• Analytics: Extends business intelligence for Microsoft Dynamics CRM by delivering sales, service and operations dashboards.
• Event Management: New functionality to plan, create, execute, and review events.
• E-Service Portal: A configurable self-service portal for enhanced customer service through Microsoft Dynamics CRM.
• Enterprise Search: Rapidly configure portal views of CRM data within SharePoint (MOSS) and expose this data to MOSS enterprise search.
• Business Productivity: A collection of time-saving productivity customizations for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0
• Sales Methodologies: Practical Guidance for adoption of third-party sales methodologies such as SPI Solution Selling, Target Account Selling (TAS) and Miller Heiman)

CIO Magazine interviewed Chris Caren the general manager of product management and marketing for Microsoft’s Dynamics line of ERP and CRM products.

With Dynamics, Microsoft’s ERP and CRM Business Apps Go Head-to-Head with Oracle and SAP

It’s an interesting read. Microsoft is really going after a sore sport with other business applications – user adoption.

“The core approach to our product strategy is to overcome the inflexibility and the ease-of-use issues that have limited adoption of business applications, and for us that means really blurring the lines between what a business application is and what the world of Microsoft Office is.”

Microsoft is tackling a major cause of user adoption problems. Ease-of-use. Essentially, if it’s too difficult to use and makes employees less productive they will be reluctant to use it. So would employees be more comfortable using CRM or ERP as part of something they’re already familiar with such as Microsoft Office? Or having to learn and use a completely unfamiliar separate application?

One of the other major causes of CRM user adoption problems is (lack of) implementation methodology. I’ll cover that topic soon.

This is one of those handy features that still seems to get overlooked in Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0.

The situation is normally that a user needs to change one piece of data within several records. Maybe you have a dozen Contacts whose phone number all changed to (312) 555-1212. Updating the records individually would be time consuming.

To bulk edit/update multiple records:

1. Select the entity/record type you would like to update (e.g. Accounts, Contacts, etc). Records can be updated from the main menu area (e.g. the Accounts list), from within a record (e.g. the Contacts list within an Account), or through Advanced Find. 
2. Select the records you would like to update.  To highlight a list of records, hold the Shift keyboard key and click the start and end records. To highlight specific records, hold the Ctrl key and click the desired records.
3. On the Actions menu click “More Actions” and select “Edit”
4. On the Edit Multiple Records window that opens, enter the data you would like to change. This will add or update that data on all of the records you have selected.
5. Click “Save”.

Updating and Editing Multiple Records in Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0

10/6/09 Update: A new post with a quick fix is at Quick Fix for Microsoft CRM Leads Notes Tab Notes and Attachments not Converting

Here’s more detail on the situation. You create a Lead record in Microsoft Dynamics CRM and add text and/or attachments to the Notes tab. At some point you then click the “Covert Lead” icon. In the dialog window that opens you choose one or more of the options to create an Account, Contact, or Opportunity. When you view the converted Account, Contact, or Opportunity records and click on the Notes tab there’s nothing there. It looks like anything that was originally in the Lead Notes tab was lost.

So was everything lost? No, it wasn’t lost but it wasn’t moved over either. When converting a Lead stuff in the Notes tab doesn’t get transferred. If you change the Leads View to “Closed Leads” the Lead record and information are still there. If you open a converted Account or Contact and look on the Administration tab there’s a field called Originating Lead which links to the original Lead record.

So is this a configuration problem or technical bug or something? No, to the best of my knowledge it was designed this way and is how it works in all versions of Microsoft Dynamics CRM including version 4.0. However, this “feature” only applies to the Notes tab for the Leads entity when converting the Lead. If you create a new Account, Contact, or other entity and add stuff to the Notes tab it keeps the data.

So what can be done about this?

There’s a simple solution with a short answer but I think it’s worth looking at a few related issues first. When I work with companies who’ve previously deployed Microsoft Dynamics CRM and this Leads Notes tab situation comes up I almost always also find that:

• Users are not using the Notes tab correctly as a whole: According to Microsoft’s official training material the Notes tab is intended for general information such as a company overview for Accounts (i.e. Company was founded in 1800 and…) or a bio for Contacts (i.e. Contact attended Harvard and…). But a lot of people are using Notes for entering history such as phone conversations which is not what it’s designed for. Phone conversations and other time-based communications belong in History.

• Users are not using CRM consistently: Meaning, some people are using Notes for recording phone conversations, some are using History, or some really aren’t using CRM much or at all. This user inconsistency causes quite a few problems including poor data integrity, inaccurate Activities Reports, and problems with users not being able to find the right information to help customers.

• No implementation methodology: The one thing these companies all had in common was they didn’t use any CRM methodology for the initial implementation and/or didn’t get assistance from anyone who had Microsoft Dynamics CRM expertise.

While the above points don’t change the Leads/Notes functionality in CRM they highlight an important point. Why wasn’t this issue discussed early on during the implementation Analysis and Training steps so it didn’t become a problem later? Because there were no Analysis and Training steps. There was no implementation methodology and no guidance from someone familiar with the product. They had a company employee install the Dynamics CRM software and told users to start using it. This employee wasn’t aware of the situation. And they shouldn’t be expected to because it’s not their area of expertise.

Okay, so back to what to do now. What are some options?

There are several options for addressing the issue, such as custom development or using the built-in tools, but they all have some sort of constraint or limitation that usually makes them unfeasible. As an example, you normally would just use the built-in tools to delete a Tab but the Notes field is locked. You can move the Notes field but not remove or change it.

So, during the implementation analysis phase I normally recommend hiding the entire Notes tab from the Lead form so nobody has access to use it. This can be done by adding the JavaScript below to the OnLoad Event of the Lead Form Properties within Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0. Note that the number in the code references the order of the tabs beginning with 0 so make sure to change the number to match the Lead tab’s position. If you’ve already deployed Microsoft Dynamics CRM, before making any changes I would recommend reviewing your current Lead usage to determine what impact hiding the Leads tab would have on your users and customers.

tab1Tab.style.display = “none”;

If you’re having some of the other problems I mentioned, such as inconsistent usage or inaccurate report data, this may indicate greater underlying issues that won’t be corrected by making small fixes like hiding stuff. It may be time to re-evaluate your implementation.

Odd how things work.

I was talking to a prospective customer about Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online. They were also evaluating a few other products including a Software-As-A-Service (SAAS) offering called Rave by a company named Entellium.

The prospect asked me “why go with Microsoft”? Good question. A good answer was that Microsoft Dynamics CRM met their requirements really well.  But one thing that wasn’t part of their requirements was vendor longevity. I suggested that this should be a key factor for them to consider because Microsoft isn’t going anywhere and most likely won’t be adversely affected by the current economic conditions.  

Can the same be said for other CRM software companies? What about all of these small CRM startups? Or what about even traditional CRM/ERP companies with an uncertain future like Sage Software (makers of ACT!, Saleslogix, and Peachtree) who fired their North American executive management team?

If it was my business should I be investing in a long term CRM “safe bet”? Or some startup that could disappear along with my advance payment? Or how about a company whose product I’ll need to rip out and replace in a couple of years with new expensive CRM software because they went under?

The answer just came in through the news.

Entellium executives arrested by FBI for making up revenue figures

Lately I’m running across more prospective clients who previously deployed Microsoft Dynamics CRM but let their Software Assurance lapse. Most of them weren’t aware of the impact this lapse would have on their Dynamics CRM deployment and said they wish they had understood it better in advance.

So what’s the big deal with letting Software Assurance expire? First, let’s take a brief look at what it is. Software Assurance is a Microsoft maintenance offering that, depending on which Microsoft license program(s) you use, is normally included for a period of time with your software purchase. It usually lasts for two to three years and can be renewed at the end of its term. Software Assurance can include a variety of benefits such as New Version Rights, Phone Support, E-Learning, and more. Here’s a PDF Software Assurance Comparison Chart with detail on which benefits are included with which license.

Most of the benefits are nice to have but the one to pay attention to is New Version Rights. When Microsoft releases a new version of Microsoft Dynamics CRM, like they did with version 4.0 in January, New Version Rights entitles companies who purchased a previous version to an equal number of licenses of the new version at no cost. So as an example, let’s say you purchased licensing for 50 users of Microsoft Dynamics CRM version 3.0 in 2007. In January you would have received an equal amount of licensing for version 4.0 at no cost.

Now about the lapse part. If you don’t renew your Software Assurance and let it lapse, your Software Assurance expires and so do all of its benefits including New Version Rights. You can keep on using your Dynamics CRM software indefinitely but when a new version is released if you want it you’ll need to pay the full cost of the software to get it. So as an example, if you originally paid $50,000 for the last version and you let your Software Assurance expire, you’ll most likely need to pay a similar amount (or maybe even more) for the new version.

So back to the prospective clients. They all really want Dynamics CRM 4.0 but are now faced with either forking out the money for the new version or staying on the old version until they can justify the cost. In hindsight, most said they would have renewed the Software Assurance had they understood its impact.

A lot of people really like the search-for-everything offerings that are available for the internet and computers. So, I’ve been getting existing customers asking if CRM has a “global search” option.

The primary Dynamics CRM search options, called Find and Advanced Find, do a pretty good job of enabling users to dig into CRM’s data to find what they need. But, Find only searches within a single entity such as Leads. And Advanced Find can perform a broader search but it’s a bit more time consuming.

So is there a way to perform one quick search that looks though all of Dynamics CRM? Yes, but it’s not built-in to Dynamics CRM. One option is the Multi-Field Search for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 by c360. C360 is an Independent Software Vendor (ISV) that makes software add-ons for Microsoft Dynamics CRM to enhance its functionality. The c360 Multi-Field Search enables you to perform one search that simultaneously looks across multiple entities (i.e. Leads, Contacts, etc) and fields (i.e. First Name, Last Name, etc).

This comes in pretty handy in general and especially for companies who are heavy users of the Leads entity because it eliminates the need to search for a person in Leads and again in Contacts.

More information on the Multi-Field Search for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 is on c360’s website.

Microsoft recently released a CRM demo or healthcare titled Patient Relationship Management. It’s a nice short five minute online demo that walks through a Microsoft Dynamics CRM implementation that has been tailored for healthcare organizations.

• Demo: Microsoft Dynamics CRM – Patient Relationship Management (Requires Microsoft Silverlight)
• Information: Healthcare CRM Whitepapers and Datasheets

 Patient Relationship Management, or PRM, is a nice approach. CRM has been somewhat pigeonholed because of the CRM acronym’s “Customer” emphasis. Microsoft is now positioning “xRM” where the “x” is a variable that could represent just about any type of relationship such as patients, physicians, suppliers, vendors, etc. As CRM is being utilized increasingly as an end-to-end business productivity platform and not just a sales force database, companies employing the xRM concept will realize greater value from their investments.